Blogosphere - In this section you'll find commentary, opinion and editorials from blogs and newspapers around the country. The opinions expressed in these blogs do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Reconnecting America.

TRANSPORT

Blogosphere: El Camino Development Could Help/Hurt

Peninsula Transportation Blog

Menlo Park's new El Camino Real/Downtown Specific Plan, approved by City Council last summer, envisions greatly enhancing El Camino's role as a place for people in addition to cars...Read On

Blogosphere: Turn Downtown One Ways into Two Ways

Stockton City Limits

Driving in downtown Stockton can be quite confusing, with its array of one-way streets. If you miss your destination, it could take a few extra blocks before you can turn around. If there aren't many cars, it's easy to overlook one-way signs, leading to dangerous situations...Read On

Blogosphere: Biking Research from TRB

DC Streetsblog

Today is Day Three of the Transportation Research Board's annual conference. Interested in pavement composition and performance? There are 200 workshops with your name on them...Read On

Blogosphere: America is Walking Disaster

Atlantic Cities

In much of America, walking - that most basic and human method of movement, and the one most important to our health - is all but impossible...Read On

Blogosphere: Bright Hopes, Obstacles for Streetcars

Greater Greater Washington

Streetcar supporters in Northern Virginia hope to see streetcar lines traversing many of Northern Virginia's cities and counties, linking housing to employment centers within and across jurisdictions, often retracing routes operated decades ago...Read On

Blogosphere: Case for Abolishing Parking Tickets

The Atlantic Cities

Anam Ardeshiri has himself been the victim of one of the great tragedies of urban parking. He's parked his car - in this case in Baltimore - and then returned to it a mere two minutes after the meter expired, only to find a $32 ticket waiting for him...Read On

Commentary: Streetcar System a Losing Proposition

San Antonio Express News

Our elected officials have been mesmerized by feel-good stories about a streetcar that voters do not want. Officials are so focused on providing funds for construction that voters cannot stop, they have not bothered to look at the future costs of operation...Read On

Commentary: Transit Just Not a Good Fit for Indy

Indianapolis Star

There is one inescapable reason that a regional mass transit system will not succeed in the Indianapolis area. "Put simply, mass transit needs mass -- i.e. density." And we don't have it...Read On

URBANISM | HOUSING | CITIES | ENVIRONMENT

Blogosphere: Rural Communities Need Design Help Too

ASLA Dirt

The new Citizens' Institute on Rural Design (CIRD), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Project for Public Spaces, and other organizations, is looking for proposals from rural communities who need design help...Read On

Blogosphere: Untangling Urban Growth Boundaries

Plan Charlotte

Containment policies, such as Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs), are becoming more widespread as metro regions try to control sprawl and revitalize central cities. Mecklenburg County's northeastern neighbor, Cabarrus County, has tried such an approach in hopes of preserving small town atmospheres and farmland...Read On

Blogosphere: Policy and Urban Form in Buenos Aires

Polis Blog

Buenos Aires is one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Latin America. Before Argentina's reduction of the public sector in the 1990s, and economic crash in 2000, Buenos Aires also had a low inequality index by Latin American standards...Read On

Blogosphere: Quest for the Perfect Online Map

Fast Company

Everyone has at least one mapping fiasco story--"and then I turned right, right into a swamp!"--and Brian McClendon, VP of Google's mapping division, has heard them all...Read On

Blogosphere: Rethinking Our Relationship with Rivers

ASLA Dirt

In 2011, the Mississippi River reached record levels. Massive floodgates had to be opened to divert water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the river rose to within feet of the tops of flood protection levees...Read On

Blogosphere: University Related Urban Revitalization

Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

The Baltimore Sun has an article, "Baltimore colleges push to improve neighborhoods: Schools now seen as 'anchor institutions' for cities," about university assisted revitalization in Baltimore...Read On

Blogosphere: Preserving Urban Rivers in Detroit

American Rivers

In the early 1900s, Detroit became one of the largest cities in the United States, and the Detroit River played a major role. The river is 28 miles long and serves as the international border between Canada and the United States, connecting Lake St...Read On

Blogosphere: Competition for Advanced Manufacturing

Brookings

A "Race to the Shop" competition for advanced manufacturing should be initiated in order to expedite the transition toward a more innovative, productive, inclusive, and globally competitive American economy...Read On

Editorial: City Needs to Fix CDBG Allocation Process

Tulsa World

Thanks to another miscue in its Community Development Block Grant process, the city of Tulsa has been penalized to the tune of $700,930 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development...Read On

Jeff Wood, Reconnecting America's New Media Director and Chief Cartographer, collects news stories and blog posts about transit and transit-oriented development from around the country and posts them at TheDirectTransfer.com. Jeff then takes the top 10 articles in each of five categories and sends that out as Other Side of the Tracks email newsletter. The content of that email is then posted here.